Arizona Republic
By: Rachel Leingang
In Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, a Republican doctor is running against the Democratic former mayor of Phoenix in a race has been dominated by their disagreements over the future of health care. Steve Ferrara, a doctor who works at the Phoenix VA and the county hospital, wants to adjust the Affordable Care Act by letting states direct Medicaid and moving people with pre-existing conditions into high-risk pools. Greg Stanton, the former Phoenix mayor, wants to protect the Affordable Care Act and work on lowering prescription drug prices.
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Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, said high-risk pools have historically not worked in many of the states they were tried. “It’s not going to do the trick. I would definitely not take comfort in his alternative of high-risk pools,” Alker said. “That’s been tried and failed.”
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Alker and Hodge, the two health-care experts, said Ferrara’s plan would likely require repealing the ACA because parts of the plan contradict federal health-care law as it stands today.
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Alker, of Georgetown, said allowing importation of drugs and federal negotiation wouldn’t fully solve high drug prices, though it’s “perfectly fine” to put those ideas on the table. “It’s going to involve some pushback from the drug companies here in the U.S.,” she said of importation.
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